


Non-Stop

by neversaydie



Series: more than you bargained for [1]
Category: King Falls AM (Podcast)
Genre: Abandonment Issues, Dissociation, F/M, Friendship, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Post episode 74, Stress, ben is non-stop, boys trying to take care of each other, fallout from being arrested, implied food issues, though they're both a little broken
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-23
Updated: 2018-04-23
Packaged: 2019-04-26 21:47:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,360
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14411226
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/neversaydie/pseuds/neversaydie
Summary: "C'mon, we're going to get some breakfast.""I've been trying to get you to stick on a 'best of' and play hooky for years, and now you finally do it?" Ben has to pause when he stands up, headrush greying his vision for a second before he can recover enough to pull his hoodie on. He's starting to shiver too - his blood sugar must really be in the basement by now."Yeah, well. You're more important than playing hooky, idiot," Sammy takes his elbow and practically frogmarches Ben out of the studio, turning off the lights as they go.[in which Ben is a little fucking stressed right now, and keeping it together isn't a priority when he's running out of time.]





	Non-Stop

**Author's Note:**

> this is kicking off a series in the same vein as 'cock it and pull it' - but focused on Ben!
> 
> TW: brief non-explicit mentions of what happened to Peas.

"Ben?"

He blinks, confused. He'd been thinking about something… he can't remember what. Troy had been on the line, maybe, and had said something about…

"Folks, we're gonna take a quick commercial break and pay some bills. Stay tuned, King Falls," Sammy sounds weird - not the snappy, secretive weird like he has been when refusing to talk about what the hell he's even going back to in California, but actually weird - and Ben looks up in concern to see him coming around the desk towards him.

"Dude, you okay?"

"Am _I_ okay?! I've been trying to get your attention for five minutes," Sammy stops in front of him, hands fluttering slightly like he's not sure what to do with them, and Ben instinctively pushes his chair back a little. He doesn't like being loomed over, lately. "You zoned out, or something."

"Huh," that's been happening sometimes, since he… since the whole being arrested thing. It's stupid to be bothered by three short days of interrogation, though, so Ben figures he's probably just stressed with everything else that's going on.

It's not like things are ever _normal_ in King Falls, but the last few months have been even stranger and more stressful than usual. He's trying to coordinate a rescue mission while supporting his not-girlfriend in the take down of a corrupt secret society, with a background of his best friend abandoning him, a court date for assaulting a police officer looming which, hey, could result in actual jail time… and, oh yeah, his beloved pet being blown to pieces and then shoved in his face.

Ben… is a little stressed right now. He's sure that's all it is.

"Ben," Sammy touches his shoulder and Ben flinches away - not expecting the contact since he'd started to drift out of his head again. This is really weird, it doesn't usually happen so insistently like this. Sammy holds his hand up like he's proving he's not going to touch again, worry plastered all over his face. "Did you eat today?"

That's the other thing that's been happening, which Ben figures is more of a concern than the whole falling out of his head thing - Sammy's noticed it, at least. In between trying to get his plan to rescue Jack formulated and the pictures of what was left of Peas dancing behind his eyelids, he hasn't exactly been big on food lately. He's running out of time to convince Sammy to stay, and things like sleeping and eating had kind of fallen by the wayside even before he had images of his dead pet's viscera popping into his head every time he puts anything in his mouth. Half the time he ends up throwing up anyway, so he doesn't see the point in…

Sammy's still waiting for an answer. Right.

"Uh… I had a Red Bull," he frowns, trying to remember anything concrete from the last twenty-four hours that isn't related to his research into the Science Institute. He'd dug up a lead on Roland Northwood two days ago and everything's been kind of a blur since. "And coffee."

" _Ben_ ," Sammy sighs in exasperation, and Ben would be offended by the level of _dad_ in his voice if he didn't know that it'll be gone forever in a couple of weeks if he doesn't pull off a miracle. "You're not gonna get some rest if I make you go home, are you?"

"Too busy with thought journal shenanigans, my guy," Ben confirms, because at least he's honest.

Sammy sighs heavily again and heads back to his side of the desk, not bothering to put his headphones back on as the commercial comes to a close.

"You're listening to the Sammy and Ben show, and we're so grateful to have you tuning in and spending time with us here, night after night. Unfortunately we're gonna have to throw to a 'best of' due to some technical issues, but we'll be back tomorrow to talk to you lovely listeners again. Goodnight King Falls, stay safe out there."

He switches to the 'best of' tape he'd clearly queued up while Ben was out of it (he's kind of proud, he didn't know Sammy could work the board that well) and mutes the mics, before grabbing his denim jacket from the back of his chair and looking at Ben expectantly. Ben blinks at him again, wondering if he's missed something, and Sammy's face softens a little in that painful way he doesn't usually let anyone see.

"C'mon, we're gonna go get some breakfast."

"I've been trying to get you to stick on a 'best of' and play hooky for years, and _now_ you finally do it?" Ben has to pause when he stands up, head rush greying his vision for a second before he can recover enough to pull his hoodie on. He's starting to shiver too - his blood sugar must really be in the basement by now.

"Yeah, well. You're more important than playing hooky, idiot," Sammy takes his elbow - and he must be _really_ concerned because he's been even more physically closed-off than usual after being outed - and practically frogmarches Ben out of the studio, turning off the lights as they go.

The drive down the mountain is quiet, Ben absently shuffling through Sammy's tape collection (he still has tapes, what year is this?) as Nirvana drifts softly from the deck. Ben pauses at what looks like a mixtape, handwritten label declaring it 'Summer 06', and pops it open curiously only to see a scribbled 'love, J' on the tape itself. He closes the case again, putting it back in the box with a strange reverence, as if he's handling some kind of lost artefact.

Emily gave him a notebook, before she was taken. He'd been rambling nervously about some kind of project - mainly an excuse to keep going to the library for 'research' - and she'd reached under the desk and handed him a dull red notebook, pages blank with anticipation, so he could keep track of his work. He'd had to get another one for his rainbow lights plan, couldn't bring himself to write in the one she'd given him in case he filled it up and she still wasn't -

Yeah, he gets why Sammy still has tapes, now.

They settle into their usual booth at Rose's, and Ben chugs half his cup of coffee straight away despite Sammy's horrified noises. Caffeine takes the edge off his hunger and his haze, and allows him to focus enough to stare blankly at the menu. The food at Rose's is great, but precisely nothing seems remotely appetising right now.

"Pancakes?" Sammy prompts, when Jessie comes back over to take their order. Even she's new in town - everything is changing all at once and Ben feels like he's in freefall.

"Sure, pancakes," he agrees, glad to have the decision taken away from him.

He could've hooked up to the WiFi and got back to following his latest Science Institute thread if he'd thought to bring his laptop, if he'd known they were going to duck out early. Although Sammy would probably have been unimpressed if Ben had started making notes about connections to cults when he's right -

He blinks, and there's a plate of pancakes in front of him. That was fast. Although the look on Sammy's face says it wasn't fast at all, and Ben just drifted out of his head again. Great.

"Y'know, Jack was like you," Sammy says quietly, hand wrapped around his mug while Ben starts to pick cautiously at his plate. The pancakes look greasier than usual, and he wonders how mad Sammy will be if he doesn't eat them. He forces himself to take a bite anyway. "He'd get wrapped up in a project and forget to sleep, or eat… although eating was a whole other… anyway. He was a lot like you, in some ways."

" _Is_ a lot like me," Ben corrects automatically, although Sammy doesn't meet his eyes. The food in Ben's mouth turns to ash and he forces himself to swallow, takes a long drink of his coffee so he doesn't gag. "Sammy-"

"You and Emily better take care of each other when I'm not here. If you're not gonna stop then you've gotta at least take breaks," his voice is thick, but otherwise he manages to forcibly keep his composure as he toys with a sugar packet for something to do with his hands. "If I find out you've made yourself sick with this shit, I'll-"

"What, come back and kick my ass?" Ben raises an eyebrow, not at all satisfied by the guilty twist of Sammy's mouth. He starts mushing a piece of pancake beneath his fork, mainly so he doesn't have to put it in his mouth. "I can't… stop, Sammy. If I stop… I don't know what'll happen. I can't give myself time to think about this… stuff. Any of it."

"But you're not processing it, you're just keeping a step ahead of it catching up with you," Sammy points out, seriously, and Ben snorts out an incredulous laugh. "You can't keep-"

" _You're_ gonna talk to me about running away? Really?"

"Can we drop that for tonight? Please? Just tonight?" He runs a hand over his hair, knocking yet more strands loose from the bun. He's been keeping on top of himself better lately, since Emily dragged him out of his depression apartment and into her place, but he's still a little more unkempt than Ben is used to seeing him. What a fucking pair they make. "I'm worried about you."

"You're the one staying in my gir- in our friend's guest room because-"

"Yeah, okay, I'm a mess too. I get it," Sammy sighs through his nose, that familiar sound that means he's trying to pick his words carefully. Ben doesn't understand how he can learn this much about someone, all their quirks and nuances and the things that make him  _care_ , and then be expected to just _accept_ them not being in his life anymore. Everyone always fucking leaves him and he's _not_ going to let that happen this time. "But you haven't been the same since Gun-"

"I don't wanna talk about it," Ben drops his fork, the sudden clatter of it making Sammy jump. Rose's isn't exactly busy at four a.m., and the quiet feels suddenly oppressive around them. It's not silent - the rickety jukebox is still pumping out the Beatles at a slightly reduced tempo - but the atmosphere feels heavy regardless. "I'm fine, dude. Really. There's nothing to talk about."

It wasn't even _bad_. He doesn't understand why his brain keeps revisiting it - the moment he stopped fighting and realised he was completely powerless. That Gunderson and his buddies could 'accidentally' wake him up at any hour or _physically encourage_ him to answer their questions and nothing, nothing would stop them. That nobody was coming for him and he was fucking helpless and he couldn't -

"That's horseshit and you know it," Sammy is still talking, huh. Ben tries to force himself to focus, come down from whatever cloud he's on. "Ben, you're full on… Whatever it's called. Dissociating. That's not good, man."

"Sammy, I'm fine," he says it firmly this time, despite feeling like his mouth sort of belongs to someone else. "I don't have time to worry about that, okay? I have to-"

"Please stop hurting yourself, for me," Sammy reaches across the table and grabs his arm and wow, okay, he really must be serious because that's the most public contact Ben thinks he's _ever_ initiated outside the station. There's a wildness to Sammy's eyes which says he might see a little too much of Jack in Ben, knows he might be looking at another man he loves slipping away right in front of him. "You _have_ to take care of yourself, Ben. You can't-"

"You want me to stop hurting myself on your behalf, or you think I'm hurting myself because of you?" Ben cuts him off, too tired to listen to Sammy give him a spiel about self-care which his friend ignores entirely when it comes to himself. "Because either way, I'm not backing down from this. I'm running myself into the ground because I need you to stay, and you know exactly what you can do about that. The _only_ thing you can do about that."

Sammy stares at him in the silence that follows, surprised and maybe even hurt by the fact Ben won't do as he says. Ben gets the feeling he wasn't supposed to be the other half of this conversation anyway, that Sammy is pleading with an echo of someone else he didn't save in time and looking right through him. It's about as flimsy as he feels, anyway, like cellophane.

After a moment of silence, tension stretching between them fragile and cold as ice, Sammy gets up and walks out of the diner.

Ben doesn't go after him. He sits there absently pushing pancake around his plate, too overloaded with stress and the sheer amount of things he should be doing to actually even think about doing any of it. His brain seems to short and he zones out entirely, staring into the middle distance until Jessie taps him on the shoulder and suggests he head home.

The sun has come up without him noticing, though its warmth doesn't touch him even as he sees the rays ripple across his skin that seems very far away. The bruises from the night he was arrested are gone, by now.

Sammy is asleep in his car in the lot, because he'd driven them there and _of course_ he didn't leave Ben behind, even if they're fighting. Ben manages a weak smile as he knocks on the window, and Sammy manages an even weaker one back as he unlocks the doors to let him in. They might be cracking, but they haven't broken yet.

Sammy promises to think about staying (although it's probably just a lie to get him to get some rest), and Ben manages to stay in his head all the way home. It's not great, but it's a start.


End file.
